Musil governor assassinated, others killed, efforts to free the Egyptian hostage

Five Iraqis from one family were killed including one child and other two were injured when a mortar shelling fell at their house in Karkouk city to the north of Iraq.

One official in the city's police said that the bombardment took place in the Kurdish Rahimawi quarters in the northern area of the city near the police center, and very often police in this city are exposed to attacks of the sort.

Several areas in Iraq witnessed yesterday bloody incidents, the last of which was the blowing up a booby trapped car neat the conferences palace in the Green Zone controlled by the multi national forces in Baghdad and this resulted in killing 11 Iraqis and wounding other 40 including one American soldier.

In a later development, unidentified gunmen killed the governor of al-Musil Osama Youssef Kashmoula in an ambush installed for his procession which was heading to Baghdad. The attack also resulted in killing two of his guards.

Concerning the deterioration of conditions in Iraq, the prime minister Eyad Allawi vowed to chase what he described as criminals and to bring them before justice.

Meantime, a statement attributed to Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, published on an Islamic website on the Internet on June 8 threatened that Allawi will not escape death.

However, in an attempt to rescue the Egyptian hostage, the director of the Saudi company where the hostage is working announced his determination to halt its activities in Iraq in response to the demands of the kidnappers.

The director of the company Faisal al-Nheit said from al-Qaseim city to the north of al-Riyadh said that the company is ready to halt its works in order to release the Egyptian hostage Ahmad al-Gharbawi who works as a driver for it.

In Baghdad, the Egyptian interests department issued a statement calling on the kidnappers of the hostage to keep his life, noting that he is a mere truck driver and has no connection to politics.